Recognition

Various genres, media, causes, and other aspects within the arts have established awards to recognize excellence in their field. There are also grants to assist the production of work that creative people otherwise could not afford to do. Crowdfunding -- like most new models at first -- is not widely accepted by conventional awards yet. Some explicitly rule it out; some simply ignore it; only a few have specifically welcomed it. One award so far specializes in cyberfunded creativity.

The Rose and Bay Award

This award recognizes exemplary projects and enthusiastic patrons in cyberfunded creativity. It began in 2010 with five categories, and has added another to make six in 2011: Art, Fiction, Poetry, Webcomic, Other Project, and Patron. (Other Project includes any cyberfunded creativity that isn't art, fiction, poetry, or webcomic -- or that spans more than one category -- such as movies, music, etc.) The award's nomination and voting posts appear in the Crowdfunding community on LiveJournal.

The award period for eligible activities spans January 1-December 31.The nomination period spans January 1-January 31.The voting period spans February 1-February 28.

Awards That Allow Crowdfunded Projects

In 2010, this award went to the crowdfunded webfic The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente, known as yuki_onna on LiveJournal (see also the LJ community onaleopard). Read the announcement in Science Fiction Awards Watch or in Crowdfunding.

Official word is that the Rhysling Award now accepts nominations of crowdfunded or self-published poetry. (In several previous years, staff ruled out crowdfunded poetry as being self-published. Then it was rediscovered that some previous Rhysling winners were self-published poems, so the rules were clarified to allow self-published poems. I asked about crowdfunding specifically and it's eligible!)

The Rhysling Award is run by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. SFPA members have the right to nominate and vote in the Rhysling Award, and also receive a copy of the annual voting anthology, which is an excellent source of top speculative poems. If you enjoy crowdfunded poetry, consider nominating/voting for your favorite examples so as to raise awareness of crowdfunding as a successful venue for poetry.

Awards That Exclude Crowdfunded Projects

None listed.

News

Do you know of an award that allows crowdfunded projects, or one that explicitly excludes them, but is not yet listed on this page? Do you have an update regarding a listed award? Have you seen an announcement for a crowdfunded project winning some kind of award? Have you heard of a new award or grant being created to honor cyberfunded creativity in any way? If so, please use the contact form below to share the news.